


The Mysterious Stranger

by DoctorpooandtheTURDIS



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorpooandtheTURDIS/pseuds/DoctorpooandtheTURDIS
Summary: Eleven has had an imaginary friend her whole life, when the fateful day of her escape from the lab, however, he proves himself to be much more puzzling enigma than she could have ever thought. He knows things she doesn't, acts with knowledge she doesn't possess, and more importantly...He knows things about Eleven that she doesn't. A secret that's far stranger than anything she could've predicted.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

The alarms stung her ears, scratching unpleasantly in her brain like metal on metal, as her tiny legs carried her faster than they ever had up until this moment.

She was already pushing herself to the limit. The numb half of her body (as always) struggled to keep up, her lungs felt like they were being crushed and cooked at the same time, while her legs felt like they would just _snap_ at any second.

But she kept running. She had to. If she didn’t… she didn’t know what would happen, but it would be nothing good.

“That’s it, Ellie!” The Doctor shouted next to her, running just as fast. She didn’t know where he’d come from, why he was helping her, or even who he was really, but he was her friend, at least… the only friend she ever had in this place. The brown longcoat billowed behind him, keeping his brown, pinstriped suit covered from the rest of the world, for the most part. His shoes were scuffed, well-worn, the tread so worn down they were totally smooth. He did a lot of running, which was weird. “Keep running, Ellie, I’m right here with you!” He supportingly shouted, giggling like mad. “Oh, I’ve been waiting to do this for _years_!”

Eleven didn’t know who he was, not actually. She was… well, she was half-sure he was make-believe, a friend she dreamt up to come to terms with the reality of her situation.

All she ever knew was this place. And that being said, even her knowledge of this place was limited, though she was certain that someone just _appearing_ like that was impossible, which is how she first reacted to his showing up. The first time it occurred, she was… sad, really sad. There was a collection of words in her mind, a jumble of concepts she couldn’t understand. ‘Home, mother, friends…’ things of that nature.

There was always that knowledge that was just _there_ , that Eleven couldn’t remember learning. The concept that what they were doing to her in this place was _wrong_ , and even the knowledge that she shouldn’t logically _know_ it was wrong, was just… there in her head, no source of it. She had thought that, perhaps, it had come from Before. She liked to imagine there was a Before, she didn’t just come into this world as she was, surrounded by the lab and the people, no matter how impossible that seemed to be.

Among that knowledge, there was one word. It was a… funny word. Not ‘funny ha-ha’ but rather, ‘funny _odd.’_ She overheard some of the people in here talking, one of them called the other one ‘Doctor’ and it was like the floodgates opened.

There were all sorts of strange feelings in her upon hearing that word… It was like it carried _power,_ written into the universe itself.

That day, the Doctor showed up, appearing in her room like it was the most natural thing. At first, she thought he was like the others, a bad person, but he was a kindhearted spirit, and oddly, completely immaterial. She could _see_ him, but he wasn’t there.

She asked him what he was, he just gave a vague shrug and said ‘a friend.’

And, he was just that. Over the course of years, he watched the people with her, taking notes of their defenses, strategies, whatever. He had a very cold, methodical, calculating mind, but that turned out to be a good thing.

He was odd though. The first oddity being that she couldn’t see him in the void. Whenever she tried, it’d just… fall apart. The second was that he seemed to know way about her and her situation more than he was letting on.

But he was always supportive, if nothing else. Even through the experiments.

Actually… he was the one who persuaded her to go along with the last one. Which was unusual, but she saw why.

The monster she contacted, it’d broken loose… providing her and her friend a distraction to escape.

“Whoop, other way!” The spiky-haired man yelped, seeing the guards running towards them, pivoting around to guide Eleven down a corridor. “Ah, see, look!” He grinned, pointing to the stairwell sign. “Up, up, up!”

“I…” Eleven pushed in, doubling over, clutching her chest. Her numb side was _really_ feeling bad today, and it didn’t help that her heart felt like it was about to _explode._ Not figuratively, it actually felt like she was feeling it rip itself apart at the seams. “It hurts… I don’t… think I can… climb…” She breathed heavily, the door locking behind her as she desperately tried to catch her breath.

“Eleven,” The Doctor looked to her seriously, “I _know_ you’re feeling, well, -blech- but I _need_ you to keep running. This is the only chance we’ll get at escape. You _know_ I’d just carry you if I could, but, well…”

“Okay…” Eleven took in a scratchy breath, charging up the stairs.

“That’s the spirit!” The Doctor grinned, effortlessly sprinting up after her. “Here we are, ground floor!” He ushered her over to the door. “Once we’re outside, we’re home free!”

Eleven nodded, determination setting in.

She _would_ escape. She’d have to. There was no other possibility, in her mind.

The lab, fortunately, was in such disarray, that even the lobby was unguarded at this point, leaving her escape route right open.

“YEEEEEE-HAW!” The Doctor shouted boisterously, leading her over to the perimeter fence. She burst through it with her powers, and began running further. “Down here!” He guided, ushering her into a big, corrugated metal pipe. “They won’t look for you in here.”

Eleven nodded, swallowing her fear, before climbing into the pipe carefully, keeping her ear out for the guards trying to chase her down.

“Just wait…” The Doctor advised. “It might be a while.”

\-----------

Indeed, the Doctor was right about it taking a while. They were searching for her all night, and with her being so close to the lab, she was worried that they’d catch up to her anyway.

Eventually, however, day broke, and the Doctor guided her out with a victorious grin, leading her into the woods.

She was tired, her numb side felt worse than usual, and she was hungry. _God_ she was hungry.

“Oh, look at that.” The Doctor stood there with a smile, looking upon the tiny building in the distance. “A diner.”

“Diner…” Eleven frowned, tilting her head at it. The word sounded similar to dinner, so… “Is there food there?”

“You bet your bunion!” The Doctor shoved his hands in the pocket of that long coat of his, taking the lead down, after a bald man with a beard stowed some garbage in the bin, going back in. “Come on! I’m starved!”

Eleven frowned, but followed.

\-----------

So, stealing was… not good. She didn’t like it, but according to the Doctor, they’d find a way to pay him back later.

Which immediately set alarm bells off in Eleven’s head. What did he mean by ‘later?’ He seemed to be working towards something, _without_ her knowledge.

And so, as Eleven sat there, ‘holding’ a conversation with the diner owner, while _actually_ listening to the Doctor ramble on about time, she glanced at her imaginary friend, curious.

Benny, that was the diner owner’s name, offered her another plate of the small, yellow, crispy long things. Fries, he called them, but that was wrong.

Chips, she recalled mentally, causing the Doctor to chuckle bemusedly.

The Doctor was planning something… she just wasn’t sure _what_ that was.

\----------

She had only _just_ come down out of panic mode when the bad people showed up, executed Benny, then tried to do the same with her.

She was fast though. Even with the left side of her body numb (it had always been that way, as long as she could remember) she was able to outrun everyone. Something was bugging her, or rather, some _one._

“You shouldn’t kill people.” The Doctor told her with a sigh. The early days, he got angry, growling, shouty sometimes, but after this long, five years… it was as if he’d given up trying to get through to her. “It’s wrong.”

“They killed Benny.” Eleven replied, stepping over a tree root as the thunder rumbled the ground, and the rain began to come down in droves. “They were going to kill _me_. And you said I should try not to get captured again, right?”

The Doctor rubbed his forehead. “Well, yeah, I sort of did say that, so, congratulations on _that_.”

“What are you planning?” Eleven questioned up-front without any nonsense, now that it was just them.

“Planning?” The Doctor replied. “What am I planning? I’m not planning anything! Sounds like you’re the one planning, planning me to be planning.”

“Doctor.” Eleven crossed her arms at him.

“Weeeelllll…” The Doctor crinkled his face. “…I need your help, right? You know how I said I go around, saving worlds, being generally all sorts of brilliant and sexy?”

Eleven nodded. She did recall that mission statement of his from when he first appeared.

“Well, I can’t do that as I am now.” He gestured to himself, passing through a tree like a ghost. “The peoples of the universe, they _need_ the Doctor back… and to do that, you have to get to the TARDIS.”

Eleven stopped. “TARDIS…” She muttered.

The Doctor nodded. “Yep. She’s the key to _all_ of this. She’ll help me, and she’ll help _you_ too. But first, we’ve gotta find her.”

“Okay.” Eleven nodded. “How do we-“

“Did you guys hear something!?” An unfamiliar voice shouted from the woods, and the Doctor’s head snapped in that direction.

The beam of light shone upon her, and Eleven stood there, caught like a deer in headlights.


	2. Chapter 2

Eleven sat there on the one named Mike’s couch, wearing his jacket, being assaulted by questions from the three of them. It was clear that the Doctor wanted to intervene, to get them to quiet down and leave her be, but he couldn’t. Physically couldn’t.

Eventually, though… they finally let up.

Mike offered her clothes, though. That was nice. Everything was so cold, and wet… even if she was confused about everyone freaking out about her about to change.

“Ah, humans.” The Doctor smiled fondly, shaking his head at the three boys. “Such a sense of modesty… wait until they get out in the universe proper.”

Eleven didn’t know what the Doctor meant by that. He was always saying things like that, which didn’t make sense to her. He said he knew things about the future, the past, and the present, and occasionally, it showed, but the things he rambled about were so _out there_ that Eleven typically disregarded him.

While she was getting changed, Mike was setting up a small blanket fort for her, which she discovered upon emerging, and the Doctor looking upon the construct thoughtfully.

“Ah, a blanket fort.” He rambled. “I built these before… then again, the ones _I_ built were usually soaked in plaster before I put them up so they were reinforced.” He looked into space with a reflective, melancholy grim. “Made the quartermasters _right_ angry.”

Eleven shook her head at the Doctor, but crawled into the blanket fort, prepared to go to sleep somewhere warm this time.

Mike was rambling about plans, and names, but right now, she just wanted him _out_ of her hair so she could go to sleep. She only gave him the number on her arm (not the Doctor’s name for her. Mike and his friends were gonna have to _earn_ that one, but it was a start, agreeing to take her in like this) and he _finally_ left.

So, Eleven laid down on her side, and the Doctor sat down next to her, like a watchful guardian. He wiggled his feet, but the disturbance was merely visual, which meant El could close her eyes, and fall right asleep.

She normally didn’t sleep a lot. Maybe a few hours at most every night, four was the absolute record, and after she woke up, it was right back into the fire.

By God, she was going to savor this.

\--------------

That night, Eleven dreams. For what feels like an eternity of its own, she can _feel_ the universe turning around her like it’s one of those teacup rides at Disneyland.

Her vision focuses on one thing, and she gulps in fear.

Someone’s in trouble. It’s a bowl-cut boy, Mike’s age, and he’s running through the woods, scared. She can feel it radiating off of him like heat in the cold, and he’s being chased by something.

The monster _she_ released.

He runs, runs, runs faster than she’s seen any other person, besides herself move. He stops at seeing a strange, blue wooden box, not covered in the same vines and decay as the other objects, and he tries his hand at opening the door. It won’t budge, not even with him in danger like that.

So, he runs faster.

When Eleven wakes up that next morning, she knows what she has to do.

\------------

The TARDIS, that’s what the Doctor calls it, has materialized on the wrong time track due to an engine malfunction. Time tracks, in his explanation, are all the possibilities that can happen within the universe, just blocked off until a time traveler goes back and alters events. When you alter history like that, you’re not creating entirely new timelines, you’re switching time tracks, and the old world you were in continues persisting, just inaccessible to you.

Somehow, the TARDIS wound up in the _wrong_ one, along with that boy. The monster was native to that time track, a world where humanity met its end prematurely and violently.

Eleven thinks the Doctor a little bit funny, for trusting her on what she saw in a _dream_ , but he trusts her, evidently… why, she doesn’t really know. Maybe it’s just because she’s useful to him, or because he really _does_ plan to get her to somewhere better after all this is done.

Either way, she has to trust him in return.

The first thing the Doctor says they have to do is fix the problem of the monster running around. All they need is supplies.

So, when Mike comes back, skipping school apparently to show Eleven around his house, she takes note of everything, silently asking the Doctor if these are the supplies he needs.

He just tells her to focus on Mike, for now. The Doctor will take care of the rest.

Eleven frowns, but obeys, paying attention as Mike shows her around.

They stop once in front of some pictures, and Eleven’s hand subconsciously went to her head, feeling the buzzcut.

…she wanted hair. She didn’t like being buzzed; it just didn’t suit her.

Mike watched, awed, as Eleven stared at the picture, and her hair just seemed to grow out instantaneously.

Eleven looked at her brown hair, protectively holding it. She wouldn’t let anyone mess with her, or more importantly her _hair_ , ever again.

Mike continues showing her around, still struck by what she just did, even as she showed him a picture of Will.

Eleven herself is struck. How to tell Mike that she _just_ saw Will in her dream? That was… freaky. Too small to be coincidence.

“Oh, never disregard a coincidence, that’s my motto.” The Doctor told her, as he peered over her, looking at Will. “Huh. You know, give him a set of Time Lord robes, give him a crew cut, and he’d look just like I did in my Academy days.”

Academy… she doesn’t know _what_ he’s talking about, but she does have a vague idea. Where all the little Gallifreyans who didn’t want to go into the military or stay out in the drylands working farms went to become something. She frowned to herself at that. It was easy to forget the Doctor’s conversations with her, rambling and disjointed as they sometimes became, she didn’t expect that little nugget of info to stick.

Mike’s mom unexpectedly comes home, and Mike practically shoves Eleven into the closet to hide her. She doesn’t understand _why,_ but apparently she looks older than him, and it’s frowned upon for older people to be in a younger person’s bedroom with the younger person without supervision? She didn’t understand that bit. How paranoid these people were.

Eventually, Mike’s mom leaves, they’re in the clear. Stuff happens on autopilot for a while after that, she telekinetically slams a door when Lucas and Dustin come back by, there’s more conversations in the basement, she _tries_ to explain the Time Track thing the best way she can, and then it’s back to sleep, again.

Good. Sleep is good, she liked sleep. It always made that numbness in her left side fade, if only for a few hours.


	3. Chapter 3

_The new Doctor was born just like the last one had been, in a storm of fire, and death, and decay, and chaos. One Doctor stood, his arms out by his side, and he_ burned _._

_He could feel every cell dying only to bounce back like a rubber ball, and his thoughts at the moment had been of Rose. She was standing right over there._

_He could feel his bones popping, cracking, only to grow back in a different structure. He could feel his cells jumbling up, changing around his complexion, freckles, moles… He could even feel his hair began to lengthen out._

_The fire died, and he stumbled, blinking. “Okay, hel-“ He cut himself off._

_His voice sounded_ wrong _._

­­-----------

Eleven woke up that next morning like she had the last, fiddling with a piece of junk or whatever Mike had given to her, disregarding the others freaking out about her powers and her hair. Dustin had tried to get her to levitate a little Millennium Falcon toy, which she refused by simply letting it fall to the ground. That caused the Doctor to laughed, which in turn caused her to smile minutely as well.

The suited man was sitting next to her, waiting for… something. She wished he was material. Now that she was out of the lab, she wanted to actually acknowledge his existence, something she found difficult being unable to touch him.

Eventually, Karen called the boys up for school, leaving just Eleven and the Doctor.

And once they were sure everyone was gone… it was time for action.

The Doctor had guided her by telling her to get every spoon, every fork, every knife, _every_ bit of silverware made out of solid metal, electronic bits from devices scattered around, and some glowy bit that Eleven didn’t recognize.

Once that was done, he very politely asked to use her powers for a moment. She didn’t really understand it, but somehow, the Doctor could focus and control her abilities as though they were _his_ , to sometimes interact with the outside world.

“What are you making?” Eleven quietly asked, looking to her incorporeal guardian as the low-vibrational hum tore through her body.

“This…” The Doctor bit his lip as the metal warped, combined, circuits and wires soldered themselves together, and the finished, junk-built device floated down into her hand. “Is a very, very important bit of kit. The Sonic Screwdriver. Step one to getting back to the TARDIS.”

“Sonic… Screwdriver…” Eleven repeated, examining it in her hands.

_“A SON-IC PROBE!?” Dalek Sec incredulously asked, as the Doctor stood in front of his worst enemies, in the heat of the biggest crisis he’d ever faced up to that point in that regeneration, yet still absolutely owning the situation._

_“That’s_ Screwdriver! _” The Doctor affrontedly corrected._

_“IT IS HARMLESS!” Dalek Sec spat._

_“Oh, yes!” The Doctor looked at his trusty tool appreciatively. “That’s what I love about it! Doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim! Although, I will tell you what it_ does _do. It is_ very _good at opening doors.” The Doctor pressed the activation button, the blue tip lighting up with a whirr, before every one of the sliding blast doors erupted into uncontrollable fire, legions of Cybermen stomping in to handle the Daleks._

Eleven slowly nodded to herself, holding the Screwdriver like the Doctor had when he’d been corporeal. “Okay… how does this help?” She inquired, looking to the Doctor.

“It’s a very _primitive_ version,” The Doctor’s nose crinkled up, “But, it’ll do. The TARDIS is stuck on the other time track, we’re here, but, that trans-temporal fissure in the lab that was created is weakening the boundaries of space time _just_ enough to send a signal through to summon the TARDIS. She’ll lock onto the Screwdriver, and land on _this_ side, and then it’ll be a pinch to close the fissure.”

“But…” Eleven looked to him. “What about Will?”

“Will…” The Doctor smiled, though oddly, he seemed happy about her _asking_ and considering the lost boy. Odd, given that it would just be _normal_ for her to be worried about someone caught in a bad place. It threw her off, it was almost like those times Brenner would act ‘proud’ of her when all she did was obey his orders to the bare minimum. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him too. Actually, I’d go so far as to say that things will work out better if we seek him out first, and _then_ go for the TARDIS.”

Eleven tilted her head curiously. “What makes you say that?”

The corners of the Doctor’s mouth tilted up. “Call it a hunch.”

\----------

Mike comes back, as she expected, and they start looking for his friend, Will. During that time, the Doctor tells her to put the Screwdriver on a ‘sensor sweep mode’ that’s supposed to detect Will’s DNA and alert them to his presence, even if he’s on the _other_ side of the time track.

During the walk, they talk, as night slowly falls. Sirens catch their attention, and they run to check it out.

They stand hidden behind a fire engine as they fish a body out of the water, and Eleven takes a fearful breath.

_The Doctor holds Torvic under the water, driven purely by uncontrollable, primal rage. The other Gallifreyan child kicks, bucks, and tries to survive as water fills his lungs, but it’s too late for him._

_Torvic burns through all thirteen regenerations, before he finally,_ finally _goes limp._

_It’s a fitting end for the bully, who always made the Doctor feel like he was drowning in fear._

Eleven snaps back to the present, and she looks to the Doctor, as Mike berates her in anguish and runs off into the night.

The Time Lord stands there, inscrutable, his hands held in his pockets solemnly.

“What… was that?” Eleven fearfully asked, looking to her friend. She didn’t know what triggered it, but she _knew_ she was experiencing something. A memory. One of _his_ memories.

“…you and I are connected.” The Doctor enigmatically answered. “That’s a memory of mine… it’s just the first of many.”

“Why is it…” Eleven ineffectually questioned him as he began to walk after Mike, leading her along on a string back to the Wheeler boy’s house. “Why is it happening?”

“…ah, don’t worry about the reasons, worry about getting to the TARDIS.” The Doctor evasively answered. “Help the Doctor, and you help yourself.”

Eleven frowned. Referring to himself in the third-person… that wasn’t good.

\-----------

Truthfully, Eleven couldn’t care less of what Mike thought of her in that moment. Will was still alive, the Doctor had concurred with her, and now the only thing that mattered was proving Mike wrong.

Even as he rambled on, still chewing her out without really being prompted.

Eventually, Eleven got fed up with it entirely, looked him dead in the eye, and made a shushing gesture.

Mike immediately stopped and spluttered, like he’d suddenly lost _all_ ability to speak.

The Doctor could barely contain his laughter at the act. “Good job, El!”

Eleven looked at him curiously for that remark.

“He was about to launch into this whole tirade about what you did being wrong, and honestly, I could do without the melodrama and the pushing you to near tears.” The Doctor remarked, as Will’s voice began to filter out of the radio, and Mike looked at it in shock. “And there we have it.”

Eleven smiled to herself as Mike immediately ate his words, and started making plans to track Will down.

\---------

The school plan was, in Eleven’s opinion as well as the Doctor’s, not a great idea. She didn’t know why, but the entire place reminded her all too much of the lab, plus, it caused another one of the Doctor’s memories to intrude into her mind.

 _“Come on, a school?” Rose incredulously asked. “What would aliens want with a_ school? _It doesn’t make sense.”_

_“Welp, Mickey sounded worked up a bit about it.” The Doctor shrugged, forging the documents effortlessly. “Who knows, might be something to it. Besides, I’ve always wanted to be a schoolteacher.”_

_“No…” Rose cocked her head. “Really?”_

They had tried to go to the AV room, only to be caught by one of the teachers and sent to the assembly for Will. There, two bullies, too much like Torvic for Eleven’s comfort, made fun of Will. Mike pushed one of them to the ground, about to earn himself a swift beating, and that was when Eleven intervened.

The kid pissed himself there.

“Nice.” The Doctor commented, looked upon her kindly. “Taking the nonviolent option, I see.”

Eleven nonchalantly wiped away her nosebleed, walking away from the crowd, back to the room where the plan was _supposed_ to have started. Really, she could’ve given Troy a brain hemorrhage and they would’ve never had to worry about him again, but something about causing harm to a child, even a particularly bad one, sat wrong with her.

That realization caused the Doctor more happiness, for some reason.

She _still_ couldn’t puzzle him out.

\-----------

Making contact with Will was easier said than done, but they had made _progress_. All they could do was overhear him talking with his mom, and they couldn’t respond.

But, they did note something interesting.

Will was being chased by the monster, and in his frantic scrambles to respond to his mother, he mentioned a box he found, not like anything else in the place, intact and vibrant. Joyce told him to run and get inside.

“The TARDIS…” The Doctor breathed with a smile, looking to Eleven. “Told you once we get Will we get the TARDIS.”

\----------

The radio had burst into flames, sending them running back to Mike’s house, but they accomplished what they set out to do, at least.

Now, the only thing left to do was locate the TARDIS. TARDIS… she’d heard the Doctor call it that, but never really questioned what it meant.

_“TARDIS.” A short-haired, big-eared Doctor wearing a leather jacket told the new arrival. “T-A-R-D-I-S. That’s Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”_

_“…it’s alien.”_

_“Yup.”_

_“….are you an alien.”_

_The Doctor grew solemn. “…yup.”_

The others want to go look _for_ Will, looking for the fissure connecting their side to the other. Clever, how they came up with that without her noticing. They took the opportunity to do so at Will’s funeral without her or the Doctor noticing.

But that wasn’t strictly _good_. The Doctor had a plan, the gate would lead them into havoc, Eleven _couldn’t_ let them stray too far from the plan… even if they didn’t know there _was_ a plan.

That caused a bit of… tension. Lucas started getting belligerent, and Eleven, fearfully, lashed out.

The Doctor stood there, looking at her with sad disappointment, unlike the angry disappointment Brenner tried leveling at her.

And then, while they weren’t looking, she ran.

It was a fearful say of adrenaline, her numb side barely managing to keep up with her normal side, theft, and flashbacks, but eventually, Eleven sensed the others were in trouble. The scream proved it.

…don’t ever turn and walk the other way when someone needs help. That’s what she’d learned… though she didn’t remember where. Dammit, the Doctor was infectious.

She met back up with the others at the same quarry where Will’s fake cadaver was found, and she _barely_ saved Mike… also _barely_ managed to keep from actually killing Troy this time.

\----------

Stuff happened, shenanigans, the government was on their tails again, she almost burned herself out flipping a van before running to the junkyard, hiding, before being found by Chief Hopper, going back to the Byers’s.

Busy day, this day. But once there, another plan began to materialize. One that Eleven and the Doctor found useful.

Joyce and Nancy wanted Eleven to find Will and Barbara, respectively, and while Barbara _may_ have been an issue, Will was certainly on the itinerary.

In actuality, though, after Barb, since she and the Doctor _knew_ Will was in the TARDIS by now (the old girl would never turn away a child in need) all that needed to be done was to send a message to Will. A simple instruction.

They’d do that by assembling her a sensory deprivation tank in the school. Funny how things kept coming back to there. They worked it out because large quantities of salt were stored there.

While the others were doing that, Eleven sat with Joyce.

“…lovely woman, this Joyce.” The Doctor began, sounding choked up. “…reminds me of my mum.”

Eleven grew misty-eyed at that as she responded to one of Joyce’s kind promptings. A face filled her vision, a soul she knew to be long-dead instinctively. A brown-haired woman, grey near the roots, with a wide face claimed by advanced age.

Her mother… she didn’t know her mother. But she knew that that face was her. A person long dead in a place far, far away from here.

…maybe if she asked the Doctor, he’d take her to see her mother. It was all but a certainty that once they restored the Doctor to a proper existence, she was coming aboard the TARDIS.

With that thought encouraging her, the time came, and the first one she was sent to communicate with was Barb. The purpose, tell her to get to the TARDIS with Will.

Unfortunately… it didn’t go as planned. Barb was dead, and while in another life, Eleven might have been startled by it, now she was just… sad.

She was no stranger to death. Death was her one, constant companion. Still, Eleven relayed her findings, and she could feel Nancy’s sorrow-filled horror at it.

Up next, however… came Will. A restructuring of the plan was necessary, but still, went off without hiccups.

She found him, sitting anxiously on a chair that looked like it had been taken out of a car, and he looked up to her, recoiling. He looked good. Obviously, the TARDIS had shown him to the food stores and medical facilities.

“Who-!?” Will jumped.

“Console room.” Eleven relayed the message she had gone over with the Doctor about a dozen times. “Panel closest to door. Switch. ‘Locate The Doctor.’ Activate it.” She ordered.

“What-!?” Will’s voice faded, as Eleven returned to the physical world.

The teenager sat up, looking to Joyce.

“Well…” The worried mother asked of Eleven. “Did you find him?”

Eleven nodded. “He’s on his way.”

“H-“ Joyce bemusedly spluttered. “How-?”

The air in the room rippled, a gust of wind building inside the gym, as a light began to shine in the middle of thin air. A strange, warping, grinding sound, like metal against wire, filled the atmosphere, rumbling the very ground with its pulse.

The light on top shining like a beacon, the TARDIS landed, solidifying with a thud.

The door clicked and slowly opened, Will slowly poking his head out, before his expression became joyous, as he was reunited with his family and friends.

Eleven turned to where the Doctor was supposed to be, only to find him missing. It was then that she remembered the entire purpose of this was to get him _out_ of her head and back to physical reality. And so, she began walking up to the TARDIS, past the others as they exchanged tear-filled reunions with Will.

Eleven placed her hand on the door, pushing on it. Locked… it had locked itself. But… why? She frowned, jiggling the door handle.

A cold, panging pain split her head, and Eleven gasped, falling to the ground.

\------------

“Holy shit, holy shit, dude!” Dustin spoke to Will in a rush. “You would not believe the week we’ve been having!”

“There was a monster, and the government, and-“ Mike continued

“And Troy got _owned_!” Lucas gushed.

“What!?” Will’s jaw dropped. “No way!”

“Yeah!” Mike enthusiastically nodded. “It was-“ He turned, freezing, as he saw Eleven at the base of the TARDIS, completely inert. It looked… it looked like she was dead.

“Shit,” Hopper cursed, pushing through. “Shit.” He crouched on her left side, picking up her arm, as the others scrambled over. “I’m not getting a pulse!”

Joyce, on Eleven’s other side, looked up. “There’s a pulse!”

“No, there _isn’t!”_ Hopper insisted.

“I know how to check for a pulse, Hopper!” Joyce told him.

“Well, so do I, and she doesn’t-“ Hopper took the right arm, the one that Joyce was checking and froze. “That’s not… what…”

“What is it?” Mike fearfully asked. “What’s wrong with her!?”

“…I don’t...” Hopper frowned, steadying himself. One side of the human body just _didn’t_ have no pulse at all. Something must still be wrong. Bringing his hand, he started chest compressions, Eleven’s unconscious body twitching with the motions.

Going back to check, Hopper was satisfied to find a pulse… but that left more questions. He pressed an ear to Eleven’s chest, and his jaw dropped.

“Joyce…” Hopper looked to her. “Listen to her heartbeat.”

Joyce, if at all possible, looked _more_ confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Joyce.” Hopper practically stared her down. “ _Listen_.”

Joyce frowned, but she obeyed, and she pressed an ear to Eleven’s chest to listen.

 _Thump-thump thump-thump. Thump-thump thump-thump._ In a rhythm of one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

“Mom?” Will looked at his mother’s shock fearfully. “What is it/?”

“Two hearts…” Joyce pulled back, awed beyond belief. “She has _two_ hearts.”

\-----------

Eleven dreams… like everybody else. But this time, these dreams are different. Not make-believe constructs of the sleepy mind, but memories. _Her_ memories. They… they don’t _seem_ like hers. Rather, like the memories of other people, and she’s experiencing them from their perspective, but they’re _hers_ … she knows because… well, it all starts to make sense.

 _“Have you ever thought what it’s like to be a wanderer in the fourth dimension?” The crotchety old man that Eleven was experiencing this memory from asked of the schoolteachers that had forced their way into_ her _ship. “To be exiles…”_

Why she knows things she logically shouldn’t.

_“There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things.” The cosmic hobo with the beatles-haircut stared into space. “Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought.”_

Why she has abilities nobody else does.

_“I’ve crossed the void beyond the mind, the empty space that circles time, I see where others stumble blind, to seek a truth they’ll never find…” The James Bond-like incarnation recited poetically, working on his own in a workshop of necessity. “Eternal wisdom is my guide… I am the Doctor.”_

Why she never knew anything beyond the lab.

_“Homo Sapiens!” The bohemian Doctor gestured theatrically, his deep, booming voice carrying the sentence far to the ceiling above. “What an inventive, invincible species… they’ve survived flood, famine, and plague. They’ve survived cosmic floods and holocausts… they’re indomitable.”_

Why… she had two hearts.

_“I OWE IT TO MY FRIEND BECAUSE I GOT HER INTO THIS!” The celery-wearing, cricket player Doctor shouted over the furious roar of the engines of the starship he was guiding to a crash-landing. “SO YOU SEE, I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU STOP ME NOW!”_

_ ‘I…’ _

_“I am the Doctor,” The multicolored, almost clownish in attire Doctor snidely commented, leaning on a wall in the TARDIS console room, “Whether you like it or not.”_

_“Every great decision creates ripples,” The short, Scottish Doctor philosophically rambled. “Like a great boulder dropped in a lake…”_

_ ‘I am…’ _

_“These shoes!” The Edwardian gentlemanly Doctor hopped like a small, excited child. “They fit perfectly…”_

_“Great men are forged in fire…” The Lost Doctor mused to himself, hand hovering over the worst doomsday weapon in the entire universe. "It is the privilege of a lesser man to light the flame."_

_ ‘I… am…’ _

_“Everybody lives, Rose…” The leather-jacket clad Doctor grinned as wide as his face would allow it. “Just this once… EVERYBODY LIVES!”_

_"I'm the Doctor.” The sandshoes-wearing, suit-clad Doctor stood in a crumbling ship, the exposed wires sparking as though buckling under the sheer power of his words. “ I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old, and I'm the man who's gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?"_

In that moment, it all made sense to her.

_ “I… am… the Doctor.” _


	4. Chapter 4

_The Daleks had stolen the Earth, pulled it right across the universe, slipping it into a pocket outside of normal time and space, something no one else would’ve found… but the Last of the Time Lords was clever enough to pull it off._

_They’d found the Earth, reunited with Rose at the end of the world… but it came with a cost. A shot from a patrolling Dalek, infinitesimally unlikely, but it happened._

_The Tenth Doctor was dying, here, surrounded by his friends, and his love…_

_But he didn’t_ want _to go… yet, he could feel it._

_The Eleventh Doctor’s personality already beginning to form, pounding on the doors of his mind, begging to be let out, to be born._

_The current Doctor didn’t want to allow that. He’d just_ found _Rose again, he wouldn’t regenerate so soon, risk his view changing so that he_ didn’t _love her. It was slim, but as long as that possibility existed, however infinitely small, Doctor Number Ten wouldn’t allow it._

_He stood up, feeling the fires of regeneration spreading through him. It’d be a tough trick to pull off, but his old severed hand was there by the console. A biologically-compatible receptacle… just what he needed._

_“When he dies, his body, it changes,” Rose exposited to Donna as she looked upon her Doctor, fearful that it would be for the last time, “But you can’t!”_

_“I’m sorry…” The Doctor drew in a breath, unable to hold it back. The regenerations were always a fight to stave off long enough to get some last words in, but God, this one was really bad. Doctor Number Eleven_ really _wanted to see the world. He shot a silent apology to the persona that would’ve been the next one, as he prepared himself, planned it out quickly in his mind. “I’m regenerating.”_

_The Doctor’s arms flew out to his sides, streams of gold particles radiating out from every exposed inch of his skin on his hands and head. Ten can already feel himself fading, slipping away, Eleven coming in to replace him._

_It’s at that point, where he moves his arms, guiding them to the severed hand._

_…oh, but Doctor Eleven is clever. They know about his vanity issues, prepared for it too. They wrestle control away from the current consciousness, and the Old Doctor is rendered helpless as the New Doctor takes shape._

_His skeleton pops and cracks. His muscles and tendons tear and grow back. His hair starts to get even longer, a lighter, shiner shade of brown. And he gets… smaller. Way smaller. The Doctor notes with a pang of fear that his plan to shunt the excess into the spare hand almost worked… but his body’s being forced to utilize the rest by the new mind._

_They want to be born. Even if it means sacrificing physical development to achieve it._

_“Hnnnggghhh…” The Doctor groaned in agony as his body killed itself, using the old cells as a source of energy and framework for the new one. He closed his eyes and let out a mental scream as he found himself unable to fight back, slipping into that deep, dark abyss that lay beyond the gap of regeneration._

_“…hnnnggghhhaaaAAAAAA **AAAAAAA AAAAAAAA!**” Like all those who’d come before her, the new Doctor was born out of death, out of decay, chaos, and strife. Her eyes popped wide open, and she nearly blew out her vocal cords, screaming as loud as she was. No one could blame her, really… regeneration was tough enough, and this one was different._

_The Eleventh Doctor stumbled forward, hand flying up to her forehead. She had a_ splitting _headache._

 _Out of her peripheral vision, the Doctor could see her friends gasp in shock, Donna especially. “Oh my_ God _.” The redhead breathed._

_The Doctor wanted to tell her it was fine, but first, there were the system checks._

_“Legs…” She looked down at them, in the now-oversized trousers. “All right… still have those. Arms?” She brought them up, waving them around wildly. “Yep, two of those, fingers… all there.” She smiled. “Hair…” Her hands flew up to it, feeling the thick mop of brown curls. “I’m… I’M A_ GIRL!?” _She squeaked, finally realizing the first thing everybody else had. She launched into frantic motions, feeling her neck for an adam’s apple. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets when she realized there wasn’t one, and she dashed around to the console monitor, almost tripping over her oversized sleeves, and pants legs, and shoes._

_“No, no!” The Doctor pulled the monitor around, looking at her own reflection. Her hand slowly moved up to her face, feeling her jawline, chin, and cheeks. “Well…” She swallowed. “It’s different… different’s… okay. I like new experiences. I did like new experiences. Do I like new experiences?”_

_“Doctor?” The American-_ sounding _one, Jack, right, that was Jack, wasn’t it? Hmm, he looked more like a John._

 _The Doctor looked at him._ God _it hurt to look at him. Every instinct was screaming at her to avert her eyes, because he was just that_ wrong, _something that shouldn’t be able to exist. Regardless, though, she smiled. “Captain Jack.” She recognized, before turning to the blonde. “Rose Tyler.” She settled finally on the redhead. “Donna Noble.”_

 _Donna recoiled, shocked. “Who the bloody hell are you!?” The fiery ginger woman demanded, “What’d you do with the Doctor!? Bring him back, whoever you are! I don’t care if you look like a kid, I’ll-I’ll… I’ll do_ something!”

_“Donna, it’s…” Jack looked at her. “That’s him… well, her now… that’s the Doctor.”_

_Donna looked to him in response, as Rose just stood there, frozen. “Don’t be daft!”_

_“It is.” The Doctor herself took a step. “When you came on board the TARDIS this time…” She bit her lip, trying to recall. “I said I wanted a mate. I_ meant _it in the synonym for friend, but you mistook it as…” She coughed. “Well, me wanting you to make an honest man out of me.”_

_Jack spluttered, covering his mouth. “Jesus Christ, Doc.”_

_“You said you weren’t having any of it.” The Doctor told her, as Donna’s jaw slowly dropped. “That I was a long streak of nothing._ Alien _nothing.”_

 _“Oh my_ God!” _Donna shot forward, looking over the girl who appeared to be a normal human child who'd gotten into the closet and decided to play dress-up with one of her father’s suits. “Doctor!?”_

_The Doctor radiantly smiled, happily waving. “Hi!”_

_Donna looked like she could scarcely believe it, as she threw her hands around the Doctor… and then she scowled, pulling back, smacking her on the shoulder. “What the hell’s wrong with you!? You had me thinking you were going to die!”_

_“I, uh, sorta did, mechanically speaking.” The Doctor coughed, before clapping her hands. “But! Don’t worry about that, it’s all sorted now, so!” She twirled around as best as she could manage with the ridiculously oversized clothing. “What do we think?”_

_“…you’re small.” Donna commented. “But at least you’ve got meat on those bones now! Used to be, I was worried about hugging you and getting a papercut!”_

_“Recycled jokes, horray…” The Doctor crinkled her nose._

_“Young.” Jack commented next, sounding rather uncomfortable by the prospect of it now. “Jesus Christ, I’m half worried I’ll get locked up now for associating with you.”_

_“Wonderful.” The Doctor grinned, looking to Rose. It slowly dropped, as she looked inquisitively. “Rose?”_

_“…it’s fine.” The blonde crossed her arms, trying to put on a smile through her tears. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”_

_The Doctor’s face went solemn. She picked up on Rose’s unspoken statement. She didn’t like the new Doctor. The only positive was that the Doctor continued in some capacity._

_The Doctor opened her mouth to say something, to offer Rose a platitude, but it was cut off as the entire TARDIS suddenly went dark and grey._

_The Daleks had found them._

\-----------

The Doctor opened her eyes, hearts beating out a drum solo in her chest, as her eyes looked around. Everyone was over her, looking her over in worry.

“El?” Joyce looked at her. “Eleven, sweetie, are you alright?”

The Doctor looked at her, ignoring the pang of pain and regret that came with the word ‘sweetie.’ Odd. It was just a word, why would it elicit such feelings from her. Troubling… great chunks of her memory were still missing. She had some big moments rattling around, some important details like the Daleks, Time Lords, the TARDIS, some of the people she traveled with, but others… the vast majority of everything else, including the circumstances of how she wound up in this situation to begin with, those were all missing.

The Doctor felt her face twist with fury at that. Damned humans playing about in her brain… using her when she didn’t know better and couldn’t reasonably resist.

“Fine.” The Doctor told Joyce as she stood up, the others all taking a step back as this girl they had known for the past few hours suddenly had her demeanor do a total shift. Eleven was shy, a little bit withdrawn, meek even. The Doctor was loud, bombastic, owning the room without having to do anything for it.

The Time Lord rolled her shoulders, feeling the left side of her body functioning properly for the first time in a long while. “Both working, good…” She noted, feeling her heartsbeat under her hand. She looked to Hopper. “You had something to do with that.”

Hopper nodded. “I did.”

The Doctor smiled gratefully, tilting her head in a slight bow of gratitude. “Thank you. Now, for _actual_ introductions!” She looked to the rest of them. “Hello, I’m the Doctor!” She enthusiastically shook each hand.

“We…” Dustin furrowed his eyebrows. “We thought your name was Eleven?”

“Designation, regeneration number, yes.” The Doctor snapped her fingers, pointing at him. “But my _name_ is the Doctor.”

Mike, for a moment, looked betrayed, like he’d expected her to be totally forthcoming with that, never mind that she didn’t _know_ that at the time. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Easy,” The Doctor flippantly shrugged, “Forgot. It’s amazing what you forget after being experimented upon and having your brain be deprived of half it’s required oxygen intake because one of your hearts stopped beating. Thanks again, for that, by the way.” She directed to Hopper.

“Uh… you’re welcome, again.”

“I-I don’t-“ Joyce stuttered, looking _supremely_ confused. Like her head was about to melt. “I-“

“Don’t worry about it, your son’s back, I have my ship back,” The Doctor gestured happily to the blue box, “All’s well that ends well…” Her face dropped, her expression taking on a darker turn. “Although…” She growled, storming into the TARDIS.

“Where’re you going!?” Mike tried to go in after her, only to have the door shut in his face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back!” The Doctor called. “Just need to pop to the wardrobe!”

“W-Wardrobe!?” Mike spluttered.

“I’m about to have a meeting with the head of a big, important scientific facility!” The Doctor responded, sounding like she was getting farther and farther away. “I have to dress appropriately!”

\-----------

It was always a tradition, post-regeneration. She’d never really gotten the chance, this go around, what with the Daleks, and then crash-landing into this mess. So, this time, instead of going into battle, fixing the problem, and then coming back to the wardrobe as a sort of victory celebration, the Doctor elected to head to the wardrobe first.

The universe was on her time now. It could wait just a little while.

The doors hissed as she walked in, already shrugging off bits of the cobbled together ensemble. No offense to Mike, but he did _not_ know the proper clothes to provide a girl.

The Doctor started by searching the racks haphazardly, bouncing, darting, and weaking between each one, grabbing anything that looked even remotely nice to her.

It was hard to base what this new persona liked based on looks alone, however. Trying it on, she made a few new discoveries about this body. Belts were the _bane_ of her existence, she _really_ liked slightly baggy shirts, plaid, tartan, and flannel was to be avoided like the _plague,_ scrunchies were cool, blue jeans were _alright_ but something to be avoided if at all possible, and braces. Yes to _all_ the braces.

With that criteria in mind, the style she settled on was actually rather simplistic. Forgoing the fancy suits of the previous Doctors, this new Doctor chose a slightly loose-fitting button-up shirt patterned with black and yellow shapes (not too loose, but loose enough so movement was unrestricted, just how the Doctor liked it now), partially baggy black pants, perfect for running unimpeded, held up by black braces.

For the last, important bit, the Doctor looked to the shoe storage, grabbing the white chucks that her Eighth face mistakenly got Chuck _Berry_ to sign.

Shoving her hands satisfactorily into her pockets, the Doctor was pleased to find that everything was already in there. The vast, almost infinite assortment of knick-knacks, tech, and just outright _junk_ was right where it should be…

Except, for one device. For that one, she had to go back to the console room.

Once there, she found slotted into one of the panels a long, brass, gold, and copper rod, each section made up of the different material, with a black neck section. At the very top was a translucent green, bullet-like conical emitter with a ring surrounding it, small metal prongs attaching the emitter to the ring section. New Doctor, new Sonic Screwdriver.

Smiling fondly at it, she stowed the device in one of the pockets on her shirt, and moved to the door.

All eyes were on her as she stepped out of the TARDIS, standing tall and proud like a Time Lord should.

“Sorry about the wait.” The Doctor smiled, looking all of them over. “Just had to get into something a bit more suitable. Now… Brenner and I have some things to… ‘discuss.’”


	5. Chapter 5

Alarms sounded in the lab on full blast, soldiers sprinting to deal with the cause, as the lights flickered unsteadily.

“Security!” Brenner spoke into the intercom as the building rumbled. “Report!”

 _“It’s an intruder-“_ The building quaked, the lights flickering. _“We can’t- it keeps breaking through everything we’ve sent to deal with it! It’s heading for- OH GOD!”_ The man’s terrified scream blew out the speaker, as the connection went dark.

Brenner stood, looking at the intercom, before turning to walk back to his office. The building continued to rock, even as he found the door to his office, pushing through. He stopped, upon seeing her.

The Doctor sat in his chair, the supposed teenager reclining with her feet on the desk as she glared at the entrance.

“Eleven.” Brenner tilted his head with a smile, entering. “Incredible. You’ve come back. I take it the outside was not as you expected it.”

“Quite the opposite.” The Doctor examined her nails. Hm… ought to get some polish. She’d look good with painted nails, she thought. “It’s amazing. I came here to shut it down.”

Brenner looked at her, curious. “Excuse me?”

“That fissure in the universe, the experiments you’re running here, all of it.” The Doctor looked at him sternly, crossing her arms.

“Oh?” Brenner replied. “Why would you want to do such a thing? We’ve been nothing but kind to you, Eleven. I’m your papa, remember.”

The Doctor narrowed her eyes. “You’re no friend of mine. No matter what word you use.”

“I see…” Brenner looked away from her. “You realize that now that you’re in here, we can keep you from getting out.”

“No, you can’t.” The Doctor uncrossed her legs, standing up. Walking around his table to stare him down. “I’ll give you one chance, Brenner. Turn yourself into the authorities.”

Brenner scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “Or?”

“Or, you’ll have me to deal with.” The Doctor stated matter-of-factly. “And you’ll find that whatever funding, whatever security, whoever you have backing you… it doesn’t mean squat when I’m angry with you.”

“Hmph,” Brenner harumphed, “I’m very scared.”

“You should be.” The Doctor stared at him.

Brenner stared back.

The Doctor clenched her jaw slowly nodding. “So, that’s how it’s going to be, then.” She took the Sonic Screwdriver from her pocket, “Do you know what this is?”

Brenner sardonically smiled. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Sonic Screwdriver,” The Doctor answered him, “Built one of these out of scrap a few days ago, nowhere near the functionality of this one, but it _did_ help me figure out how that fissure works. How to manipulate it. How to close it… and widen it.” She pressed down the button, causing the building to quake.

Unlike the others, however, this one did not cease after a few short minutes, only intensifying.

“What is this!?” Brenner demanded, holding onto the desk for dear life. “What are you doing!? Eleven!”

“Making sure the consequences of your actions catch up this time.” The Doctor crossed her arms. “The fissure in the central lab will widen, this lab, and everyone inside it, will be pulled through to the other side, and the tear will snap shut afterward. You’ll be trapped there. Course, it’s not all bad.” She turned around. “There’re some sources of food you’ll be able to cobble together, water you can purify. You and everyone else will be able to survive.”

Brenner scowled. “Surely, you realize that includes yourself?”

“It would, but, ah… I’ve got to tell you.” The Doctor shrugged. “I’m not really there.”

Brenner’s face fell. “What?”

“I was never really very good with all the telepathic stuff unless it was touch-based,” The Doctor recalled, pacing around. “Until your people helped out with that, so, thanks.” She sat down, moving right through the chair. “I’m using the same trick I used to communicate with Will Byers to get him out of _that_ mess he found himself in. Right now, I’m in my TARDIS, controlling the fissure. After you lot disappear through it, that’ll be it. Don’t worry… I’ll fix the mess you made.” The Doctor glared.

“W-Wait!” Brenner pleaded. “I can offer you things! Money! Compensation! Stop this!”

“You had your chance…” The Doctor stared at him with crossed arms. “You should’ve taken it.”

“No!” Brenner shouted, as an ear-splitting bang tore through the air, and the world went white. “ELEVEN!”

\------------

The Doctor slipped back out of that black, infinite abyss that she could use to spy on people, quickly sprinting over to the console monitor, she pulled the swiveling screen around to one of the panels filled with keys, buttons and switches. Looking at it, she could see a readout of the lab as the tear consumed the building, sending it into that strange, freakish alternate world.

The Time Lord flicked a few of the switches, pushing one of the sliders on the panel all the way up, watching tensely before the tear’s growth began to abruptly reverse, before snapping shut altogether.

The Doctor let out a sigh of relief. It looked closed… but she had to make sure. Setting the controls, the Doctor grabbed the throttle, pushing it all the way forward.

The engines engaged with a thud, as the central column began to slowly rise and fall.

\----------

“….she’s been in there a long time.” Hopper remarked, looking at the TARDIS warily.

Mike looked at him, frowning. “She just needs concentration to be able to use her powers. It was like when we were first trying to find-“

A deep, earth-rumbling thud cut him off, as the light atop the TARDIS began to glow. That metallic wheezing and grinding grew louder and louder, as the light on top began to flash, the exterior fading out and back in with each pulse.

“El!” Mike tried to run over to the TARDIS, being narrowly yanked back by Hopper. “Eleven!” He screamed. “Wait!”

The TARDIS faded out, leaving only the warping echo, before that too faded and became nothing.

“She…” Mike fell to his knees. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”

\-------------

A deep, echoing thud vibrated Mike’s bones, and he shot up, running over to his window, peeking out.

There on the street below, stood in the cone of light coming down from one of the streetlamps, was the Doctor’s big, blue wooden box. The wood itself from this distance looked smooth like perhaps plastic or stone, the very material seemingly glowing on its own even without the blue glow of the windows and signs.

His jaw dropping, Mike didn’t need to think before acting.

Running down the steps through his house, out the front door, he ran out to the TARDIS, the Doctor already standing outside, rubbing the side of the time machine lovingly.

“Ah, hello again!” The Doctor looked to him with a smile. “Sorry for running off like that earlier. Had to make sure the gate was properly closed.”

“It’s you…” Mike breathed, stepping closer to her in shock. “You came back.”

The Doctor gestured wildly. “Of course I came back, I always come back. Can’t keep away from Earth for long, keep getting pulled back like a bad habit.”

Mike looked her up and down as he walked over. “You look the same.”

“Course I look the same.” The Doctor scrunched her face. “I just got this body, don’t fancy having to upgrade to the next model again so soon. So,” The Time Lord tugged on the braces holding her trousers up, “Coming?”

Mike looked to her, startled. “What?”

“Well, the Upside Down, the Demogorgon, all of that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” The Doctor bounced on the heels of her feet. “The universe’s a whole lot bigger, a whole lot stranger, and a whole lot more _better_.”

“The… universe?” Mike repeated, looking to her, dumbfounded.

“Sure!” The Doctor knocked on the TARDIS’s side. “This old girl isn’t limited to just the Sol System, you know, it goes anywhere! Anywhere in space, forward and back in time.” She suddenly snorted. “Not sideways. Never sideways.”

Mike furrowed his brow. “What does that even _mean_?”

“It means- well, it means…” The Doctor self-consciously swallowed, before smiling. “Come with me.”

Mike looked to the TARDIS, genuinely considering the offer. “The Demogorgon… the Upside Down…”

“Oh, don’t worry, like I said;” The Doctor grinned knowingly, madly. “It’s just the start.”

“Yeah, but all that, everything that happened…” He looked to her, scowling. “It happened a year and a half ago!”

The Doctor recoiled, as though struck. “Ah, so, this is-“

“Summer 1985.”

“Summer 1985.” The Doctor repeated, nodding. “Oops. Heh,” She awkwardly chuckled, “I was wondering why you got so… tall.”

Mike huffed back, looking to the TARDIS. “Will… he told me this thing was bigger on the inside, and there were kitchens, and bedrooms, and sickbays, and… all sorts of stuff.”

“Yep.” The Doctor smiled radiantly. “So, you’re coming then.”

Mike snapped back to look at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“All-American boy hiding an escaped experiment in his basement with no hope of a reward only to start crushing on her?” The Doctor winked knowingly. She wasn’t stupid, even when her memories were _totally_ missing, she could see that Mike had been looking for the chance to snog her face off, despite her looking like a sixteen-year-old and him being only thirteen. The gap between her apparent age and his actual age was closed now. Good. She didn’t want to be carting around a literal child. “Yeah…” The Doctor nodded, knowing he’d already been ensnared. “You’re coming.”

Mike tried to look the part of resistance. “…I moved on.” _‘From you,’_ was the unspoken other part of that sentence.

The Doctor theatrically crinkled her features, shaking her head. “Oh, don’t worry… I’ll fix that.” She raised her hand, fingers positioned to snap. She moved, the resulting click echoing like the crack of a whip, before the doors to the TARDIS opened slowly by themselves, golden-orange light spilling out.

Mike’s jaw fell as he slowly looked to the TARDIS, and then back to the Doctor.

She smiled, gesturing with her head towards the time machine.

Mike slowly stepped through the threshold, his brain struggling to bridge the disconnect between what he was seeing now and what was on the outside.

Inside, seemingly _shoved_ into the box in a violation of all the laws of Euclidian geometry Mike had been taught, there was an enormous, almost torus-shaped room, bigger than Mike’s _house_ on its own. The walls were made of a gold-coppery metal, almost like the metal on the lower half of the Apollo 11 lunar lander. Beams of what looked like an almost coral-like material ran up the walls, seemingly bruised with age, at periodic intervals. The space in between each beam was punctuated with a single, massive, circular light fixture, some of them cut out to reveal corridors leading even _deeper_ into the structure.

Up on a raised platform in the center of the room, with ramps leading down to the entrance door and the passageways to the other sections of the TARDIS, there was a hexagonal control console, with a peculiar arrangement of spinning and blinking lights on the inside of a tall glass tube connecting it to the ceiling. On each panel of the control console ranged a wide variety of objects, from scientific instruments, to computer parts, to just outright _junk_ that looked like it had been installed because it was fun.

The door clicked shut behind Mike, the Doctor passing him by as she strode up to the console. She seemed to realize that he was falling behind and came back over, looking at him with a sly smile. “So… anything you wanna say? Don’t worry,” She conspiratorially leaned towards him, “I’ve heard every sentence in the book.” She chuckled, turning away as she went back to the console.

Mike’s jaw was held open by amazement as he looked around, beholding the vast amount of space in the inside of this magnificent construct. The metal under his feet felt heated, but not in the sense of heat as something else was keeping it warm, but rather like the metal had warmth, _life_ of its own, an idea that he came to upon hearing the almost heartbeat-like thrum of the distant generators deep in the TARDIS.

“…I’m still in my pajamas.” Mike stated, the only thing he could really focus on.

The Doctor looked over to him, raising an eyebrow in surprise, before shrugging. “Ah, don’t worry, I was in an oversized t-shirt when we met.” She chuckled, turning away. “Don’t worry! Plenty of things you can swipe in the wardrobe. So!” She clapped her hands, tapping a pressure gauge on the console, watching the needle tick back and forth as she set the controls. “Quick pit-stop to pick up Will, then we’ll be off.”

“Will?” Mike looked to her, curious.

The Doctor glanced at him as she threw a couple of the small levers on one of the panels around. “Survived a hellscape of nightmares while being hunted by a monster _and_ did it without having to kill or maim to do it. I like that in a human,” She pulled back a red lever, causing a hiss like a brake on a semi-truck being disengaged to sound throughout the room, “Figured I might as well make him the offer. Gets awfully lonely, just two people. Get three, it’s a nice, balanced number. Three’s good, I like three.”

Mike slowly nodded, turning away. “All right, yeah, cool.”

“Okay,” The Doctor walked over to him, standing next to him as he looked upon the console room, still obviously overwhelmed, “You’re good? Cause, you know, culture shocks…”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just…” Mike huffed, “All this is… weird. I mean, I knew you were kind of out there before, but I was starting to think that you were, like, way weirder than I thought.”

“Michael Wheeler, listen to me,” The Doctor looked to him sternly. “I am the single _weirdest_ being in this universe that you will ever meet.” She chuckled, pointing at him. “Right, well!” The Doctor smiled, clapping her hands together as she turned around. “Shall we be off?” Not even waiting for him to answer, she pulled back one of the levers, causing the entire room to rumble with a resounding thud.

Pushing the throttle forward, the TARDIS began to shake, rattle, and roll as the center column rose and fell repeatedly, each pass causing that strange, metallic grinding wheezing that the ship stuck in Mike’s memory with.

“SAY _‘WHEEEEEEEEEE!’”_ The Doctor shouted over the roaring of the engines as she held onto the console, Mike stood next to her, holding on as well.

The pressure gauges on the console went absolutely _barmy_ as the TARDIS smashed through the time barrier, powerful bolts of electricity arcing off the exterior of the dematerializing craft as it began falling out of normal space into the chaotic, tumbling energies of the time vortex, off to see the universe.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

**_ COMING SOON… _ **

_“All of time and space,” The Doctor theatrically gestured to the vast, infinite majesty of the cosmos extending before her, the two boys at her sides looking on in awe, “Out there, waiting for us… Any star, any planet, ripe to be explored!”_

_\-------_

_A man sprinted through collapsing tunnels of a compromised bunker, a great wall of fire chasing after him. The WWII coat he made himself known for billowed behind him, the vortex manipulator on his wrist beeping worriedly…_

_\------_

_“Sir, you’re not going to believe this,” The aide gestured disbelievingly to a door, “We have a visitor, it’s- she says, well- she says her name is_ Holmes. _”_

_The doors burst open, as the Doctor strode in, twirling an umbrella. “Yes, it is I, the Great Detective herself! Now, what have we here!?” She rushed over to a console, far too advanced for the time and place. “Big flashy lighty thing! Big flashy lighty things have me written all over them!”_

_“That,” Professor Simeon stormed over, “Is a very sensitive piece of equipment! And-“_

_“Shush,” She snapped her fingers, pointing at the aide, “Your family has a history of heart failure, you have a wife with false teeth and a glass eye, and a goldfish named Craig.”_

_The aide looked like he had to honestly consider it for a moment. “No.”_

_“Hm,” The Doctor smiled satisfactorily, “I thought not.”_

_\--------_

_“The Doctor is a name as old as human history…” The balding man told the being across from him. “A God of Infinite Faces, meddling, steering us down the path_ it _desires… they’re not to be trusted, Mrs. Byers. Your son is in_ grave _danger.”_

_\---------_

_“Oscar Wilde!” The Doctor giggled giddily. “We’re fighting sexy vampires with_ Oscar Wilde! _God I love my life!”_

_\--------_

_The Doctor looked around, her eyes bugging out. “This is Roanoke… just a few days_ before _the entire colony mysteriously vanishes.”_

_“And that’s bad?” Mike assumed._

_“Given that_ everyone _goes missing and no one ever figures out what happened… yeah.” The Doctor soberingly nodded. “I’d say so.”_

_\--------_

_“You’re not the Doctor,” The man before her tilted his head scrutinizingly. “You’re a mental patient playing around at being a hero. You belong in a psych ward, not in a TARDIS.”_

_\-------_

_The Doctor stood in shock, staring at the stuffed bodies before her on display. Humans, from all over, snatched up and put on display as trophies._

_\--------_

_“Quick word, Mike,” The Doctor quickly pulled him off to the side, “Bad news, Will’s been possessed by an entity I don’t understand and have no clue where it came from, but, good news, he left my stash of Eggos alone so maybe he’s not half bad.”_

_“Possessed!?”_

_“Oh,_ sure, _focus on the negative!”_

_\-------_

_“A… are monsters…” The child shivering under his blankets looked to her, pleading. “Are monsters real?”_

_“They are.” The Doctor honestly answered. “But that’s okay, and you know why? Because monsters are scared of things too.”_

_“What are they scared of?” He asked of her._

_“Me.”_


End file.
